We toured Nonni’s Foods 45,000-sq.-ft. biscotti production facility in Ferndale, N.Y.

Issued at Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:48:34 GMT. This is only a prototype and the file format may change without notice.

A number of vendors at this year's Safety 2016 expo, which opened Sunday afternoon, are promoting risk management and risk assessment tools.

State of the EHS Nation- Exclusive results from ISHN’s 28^th annual White Paper Reader Survey.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) for the eyes and face is designed to prevent or lessen the severity of injuries to workers.

Most OEHS professionals think they do not have enough measurements above the limit of detection to use statistical tools to characterize exposure risks.

Young women and girls in Kazakhstan share their stories of trafficking, exploitation and violence and how connection and compassion is helping them to raise their voices and show leadership.

Atlantic Tire & Service, a locally owned and operated automotive care and repair center with shops in Cary, Raleigh and Durham, NC., was recognized by readers of Cary Magazine as the "Best Mechanic" in Western Wake County.

Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport Hotel (North I-85) provides affordable accommodations to guests attending the Atlanta Camping and RV Show at Atlanta Expo Center South from January 25-27, 2013.

With all the over-the-counter and prescription products available for treating a wide array of skin care conditions, most people are not aware of which dry skin treatment lotions are the best for one's skin.

Express Oil Change & Service Center is concerned that Brian McCann's performance in the 2012 season will result in his contract not being extended with the Atlanta Braves.

Accident lawyers in Atlanta, McAleer Law, know defensive winter driving is important, even in this city. The weather may be favorable most of the time, but snow and ice are not complete strangers, and practicing proper driving techniques is advised.

California drifter Tyler Wolfson is entering his second year competing on GT Radial ultra high performance tires and is getting some attention after five podium finishes in 2012. His car is on the cover of this month's Wrecked Magazine.

The accident lawyers in Atlanta would like to remind motorcyclists to drive safely this winter. These vehicles are not meant for driving on slick roads, and they are much more difficult to control than cars or trucks when sliding does occur.

The Atlanta auto repair company, Express Oil, knows that changing your oil every 3,000 miles is a great way to keep your vehicle running smoothly. Synthetic blends can last longer, but most oil filters are not designed to withstand longer intervals.

Motorcycling has become very popular in recent years.

Sponsored by the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers nonprofit organization and billed as the "Mother of all Walks," the event will be held at the Phoenix Zoo, 455 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, Arizona 85008.

Giant Lottos Celebrates 20 Years of Trusted Service and Highlights Positive Customer Experiences on Trustpilot

Watsonville's AAA-Certified Auto Repair Center Serving the Community with Excellence

Saad Bin Arshad, MS, is a distinguished senior systems modeling engineer at Lucid

A Global Art Exhibition Examining Humanity's Journey Through Identity, Technology and Culture

Today Otherlab, a sort of incubator/skunkworks, unveiled this aluminum-framed Lightfoot scooter.

It's got a 48-volt, 1.1kWh battery that provides up to 37 miles (60 km) of range, and which can be charged at a standard wall socket. But as you've undoubtedly noticed, the scooter has rather a lot of solar panels. Otherlab says you can use the sun to get up to 18 miles (28 km) of additional range. "Each hour of sunbathing recharges Lightfoot with 3 miles of solar-powered freedom," the firm writes.

I can't imagine why they've not photographed this, but the Lightfoot reportedly sports a lockable storage compartment that can hold "more than 1.5 cubic feet (45.2 liters)–comparable in size to a carry-on suitcase," Otherlab writes. "This compartment can comfortably fit up to 33 lbs. (15kg) of cargo, enough space for three large grocery bags, a work bag, a helmet or anything else you need to stash on your travels. Its weatherproof design and sturdy lock protect your stuff from prying eyes and the elements, ensuring your belongings arrive as safely as you do."

The Lightfoot is retailing for $4,995, and is expected to ship in January.

A motorcyclist riding through rainy weather might coat their visor with a water repellent spray. However, they then have to travel fast enough for wind resistance to blow their visor clear. At slower speeds, their visibility remains compromised.

This Bikerguard invention, created by two engineers in Slovenia, is a remote-controlled wiper blade for motorcycle helmet visors. You do have to drive two screws through the top of your visor to attach the mounting base, and you can then pop the Bikerguard on and off as needed. A wireless remote control attaches to your bike's handlebars.

The POV demonstration does seem convincing:

The developers claim that motorcycle police bodies in Slovenia, Hungary and Germany "are in the process of evaluating BIKERGUARD for potential integration into their motorcycle fleet." In the meantime, they sell these online for €319 (USD $339) a pop. A three-pack of replacement wiper blades runs €25 (USD $27).

I wouldn't be surprised if, in the future Oakley develops a visor for runners with one of these attached.

The work of long-time Core77-fave NOOKA—founded by Matthew Waldman—is the subject of a newly-released book, Designing Time, a lavish and time-travel-y chronicle of the brand's evolution and its efforts to make us rethink how we perceive the formal intersection of time and design.

"The Future Should Not Look Like the Past" offers a deep dive into NOOKA's journey, from its inception to its impact on the design landscape. Established in the late 1990s, NOOKA was a pioneer in creating timepieces that employed a unique visual language, "making the concept of time more intuitive and accessible." The brand's partnership with Seiko marked the beginning of a new era in watch design, introducing passive intelligent interfaces that enriched the user experience.

With ambitions ahead of their time, Waldman's vision was "to promote a universal language through design that transcends cultural and geopolitical boundaries." He created a shorthand for the concept—Mindstyle—which "merges interface design with lifestyle aspirations, aiming to foster a better future."

Inside the Book

Spanning 200+ pages, Designing Time is an absolute treasure trove for design enthusiasts, and an incredible pleasure to meander through. It features an array of content—including sketches, renders, and photographs—accompanied by inside stories and process images of unrealized projects. (Always some of the most ambitious!) The book not only highlights NOOKA's groundbreaking products (such as the iconic STRIP belt and futuristic sunglasses), but also delves into the brand's cultural impact during the 2000s. Anyone in the design world at that time will be taking a very enjoyable trip down memory lane with this thing.

Launched on Kickstarter Japan in 2022, the book quickly reached its funding goal, reflecting the enduring interest in NOOKA's innovative approach. The first print run sold out, and a second edition [Hard cover only] is set to ship in November 2024, so more of us will be able to get ouir hands on one.

Find more info here: https://www.nooka.com/nooka-book/

ICE cotton futures saw a slight rebound after recent lows, capped by a stronger dollar. Traders have shifted focus to the March 2025 contract, with trading volume remaining high. Crude oil's recovery offset earlier price declines, easing polyester costs. Other agricultural commodities showed mixed trends. Traders await the USDA export sales report, with attention on Chinese demand.

Global cotton markets saw slight declines and stabilisation in recent weeks, with NY/ICE December futures trading between 67–75 cents/lb since June, now at 71 cents/lb. The global A Index dipped from 85 to 83 cents, while China's index dropped from 101 to 97 cents due to a weaker yuan. Indian and Pakistani spot prices also declined, but both rupees remained stable against the dollar.

The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a determination that a worker was not entitled to underinsured motorist benefits for an on-the-job injury caused by an inattentive driver. Case: Preston v. Progressive…

Wildlife photography fans now have a unique opportunity to own a true collector’s piece from renowned wildlife photographer David Lloyd. For the first time, David...

The post Now you can own this rare collector’s edition book set of wildlife fine art photography appeared first on DIY Photography.

Starting an online art photography business is a huge milestone in your career. As photographers, it’s all too easy to collect hundreds, if not thousands,...

The post How to sell fine art prints like an award-winning photographer  appeared first on DIY Photography.

The world has changed. Everything we do is more immediately visible to others than ever before, but much remains the same; the relationships we develop are as important as they always were. This post is a few thoughts on self-promotion, and how to have good relationships as a self-publisher.

Meeting people face to face is ace. They could be colleagues, vendors, or clients; at conferences, coffee shops, or meeting rooms. The hallway and bar tracks at conferences are particularly great. I always come away with a refreshed appreciation for meatspace. However, most of our interactions take place over the Web. On the Web, the lines separating different kinds of relationships are a little blurred. The company trying to get you to buy a product or conference ticket uses the same medium as your friends.

Freelancers and small companies (and co-ops!) can have as much of an impact as big businesses. ‘I publish therefore I am’ could be our new mantra. Hence this post, in a way. Although, I confess I have discussed these thoughts with friends and thought it was about time I kept my promise to publish them.

Publishing primarily means text and images. Text is the most prevalent. However, much more meaning is conveyed non-verbally. ‘It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.’

Text can contain non-verbal elements like style — either handwritten or typographic characters — and emoticons, but we don’t control style in Twitter, email, or feeds. Or in any of the main situations where people read what we write (unless it’s our own site). Emoticons are often used in text to indicate tone, pitch, inflection, and emotion like irony, humour, or dismay. They plug gaps in the Latin alphabet’s scope that could be filled with punctuation like the sarcasm mark. By using them, we affirm how important non-verbal communication is.

The other critical non-verbal communication around text is karma. Karma is our reputation, our social capital with our audience of peers, commentators, and customers. It has two distinct parts: Personality, and professional reputation. ‘It’s not what was said, it’s who said what.’

So, after that quick brain dump, let me recap:

• Relationships are everything.
• We publish primarily in text without the nuance of critical non-verbal communication.
• Text has non-verbal elements like style and emoticons, but we can only control the latter.
• Context is also non-verbal communication. Context is karma: Character and professional reputation.

Us Brits are a funny bunch. Traditionally reserved. Hyperbole-shy. At least, in public. We use certain extreme adjectives sparingly for the most part, and usually avoid superlatives if at all possible. We wince a little if we forget and get super-excited. We sometimes prefer ‘spiffing’ accompanied by a wry, ironic smile over an outright ‘awesome’. Both are genuine — one has an extra layer in the inflection cake. However, we take great displeasure in observing blunt marketing messages that try to convince us something is true with massive, lobe-smacking enthusiasm, and some sort of exaggerated adjective-osmosis effect. We poke fun at attempts to be overly cool. We expect a decent level of self-awareness and ring of honesty from people who would sell us stuff. The Web is no exception. In fact, I may go so far as to say that the sensibilities of the Web are fairly closely aligned with British sensibilities. Without, of course, any of our crippling embarrassment. In an age when promoting oneself on the Web is almost required for designers, that’s no bad thing. After all, running smack bang through the middle of the new marketing arts is a large dose of reality; we’re just a bunch of folks telling our story. No manipulation, cool-kid feigned nonchalance, or lobe-smacking enthusiasm required.

Consider what the majority of designers do to promote themselves in this brave new maker-creative culture. People like my friend, Elliot Jay Stocks: making his own magazine, making music, distributing WordPress themes, and writing about his experiences. Yes, it is important for him that he has an audience, and yes, he wants us to buy his stuff, but no, he won’t try to impress or trick us into liking him. It’s our choice. Compare this to traditional advertising that tries to appeal to your demographic with key phrases from your tribe, life-style pitches, and the usual raft of Freudian manipulations. (Sarcasm mark needed here, although I do confess to a soft spot for the more visceral and kitsch Freudian manipulations.)

There is a middle ground between the two though. A dangerous place full of bad surprises: The outfit that seems like a human being. It appears to publish just like you would. They want money in exchange for their amazing stuff they’re super-duper proud of. Then, you find out they’re selling it to you at twice the price it is in the States, or that it crashes every time it closes, or has awful OpenType support. You find out the human being was really a corporate cyborg who sounds like you, but is not of you, and it’s impervious to your appeals to human fairness. Then there are the folks who definitely are human, after all they’re only small, and you know their names. All the non-verbal communication tells you so. Then you peek a little closer —  you see the context — and all they seem to do is talk about themselves, or their business. Their interactions are as carefully crafted as the big companies, and they treat their audience as a captive market. Great spirit forefend they share the bandwidth by celebrating anyone else. They sound like one of us, but act like one of them. Their popularity is inversely proportional to their humanity.

Extreme examples, I know. This is me exploring thoughts though, and harsh light helps define the edges. Feel free to sound off if it offends, but mind your non-verbal communication. :)

That brings me to self-promotion versus self-aggrandisement; there’s a big difference between the two. As independent designers and developer-type people, self-promotion is good, necessary, and often mutually beneficial. It’s about goodwill. It connects us to each other and lubricates the Web. We need it. Self-aggrandisement is coarse, obvious, and often an act of denial; the odour of insecurity or arrogance is nauseating. It is to be avoided.

If you consider the difference between a show-off and a celebrant, perhaps it will be clearer what I’m reaching for:

The very best form of self-promotion is celebration. To celebrate is to share the joy of what you do (and critically also celebrate what others do) and invite folks to participate in the party. To show off is a weakness of character — an act that demands acknowledgement and accolade before the actor can feel the tragic joy of thinking themselves affirmed. To celebrate is to share joy. To show-off is to yearn for it.

It’s as tragic as the disdainful, casual arrogance of criticising the output of others less accomplished than oneself. Don’t be lazy now. Critique, if you please. Be bothered to help, or if you can’t hold back, have a little grace by being discreet and respectful. If you’re arrogant enough to think you have the right to treat anyone in the world badly, you grant them the right to reciprocate. Beware.

Celebrants don’t reserve their bandwidth for themselves. They don’t treat their friends like a tricky audience who may throw pennies at you at the end of the performance. They treat them like friends. It’s a pretty simple way of measuring whether what you publish is good: would I do/say/act the same way with my friends? Human scales are always the best scales.

So, this ends. I feel very out of practise at writing. It’s hard after a hiatus. These are a few thoughts that still feel partially-formed in my mind, but I hope there was a tiny snippet or two in there that fired off a few neurons in your brain. Not too many, though, it’s early yet. :)

This image shows a particular optical illusion that confronts us every day. Notice the difference between the black text on a white background and the reverse. With reversed type — light text on a darker background — the strokes seem bolder.

Black text on white is very familiar, so we can be forgiven for thinking it correctly proportioned. For familiarity’s sake we can say it is, but there are two effects happening here: The white background bleeds over the black, making the strokes seem thinner. With reversed type the opposite is true: The white strokes bleed over the black, making it seem bolder.

One of the most obvious examples of this is with signs where the letters are punched into the surround then lit from inside. In his article, Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface, Ralph Herrmann used his own Legibility Text Tool to simulate this effect for road and navigational signs.

One might say that characters are only correctly proportioned with low-contrast. Although objective reality hails that as true, it isn’t a good reason to always set type with low contrast. Type designers have invariably designed around optical illusions and the constraints of different media for us. Low-contrast text can also create legibility and accessibility problems. Fortunately, kind folks like Gez Lemon have provided us with simple tools to check.

As fascinating as optical illusions are —  the disturbing, impossible art of Escher comes to mind — we can design around reversed body type. On the Web, increasing tracking and leading are as simple as increasing the mis-named letter-spacing and line-height in CSS. However, decreasing font weight is a thornier problem. Yes, we will be able to use @font-face to select a variant with a lighter weight, but the core web fonts offer us no options, and there are only a few limited choices with system fonts like Helvetica Neue.

Reversing a logotype

For logotype there are plenty of options, but it makes me slightly uncomfortable to consider switching to a lighter font for reversed type logos. The typeface itself is not the logotype; the variant is, so switching font could be tricky. Ironically, I’d have to be very sure that that was no perceivable difference using a lighter weight font. Also, with display faces, there’s often not a lighter weight available — a problem I came across designing the Analog logo.

The logotype worked well when testing it in black on white. However, I wanted a reversed version, too. That’s when I noticed the impact of the optical illusion:

It looked bloated! Objective reality be damned; it simply wouldn’t do. After a few minutes contemplating the carnage of adjusting every control point by hand, I remembered something; eureka!

Punching the paths through a background image in Fireworks CS4 removed the illusion. (Select both the path and the background then using Modify > Combine Paths > Punch.) Is this a bug? I don’t know, but if it is, it’s a useful one for a change!

I grinned. I was happy. All was well with the world again. Lovely! Now I could go right ahead and think about colour and I wouldn’t be far from done. This is how it emerged:

A final note on logotype design & illusions

Before we even got to actual type for the Analog logo, we first had to distill what it would convey. In our case, Alan took us through a process to define the brand values and vision. What emerged were keywords and concepts that fed into the final design. The choice of type, colour, and setting were children of that process. Style is the offspring of meaning.

I always work in greyscale for the first iterations of a new logo for a few simple reasons:

1. The form has to work independently of colour — think printing in greyscale or having the logo viewed by people with a colour-impairment.
2. It allows for quick testing of various sizes — small, high contrast versions will emphasise rendering and legibility issues at screen resolutions, especially along curves.
3. I like black and white. :)

I realise that in this day and age the vast majority of logos need to perform primarily on the Web. However, call me old-fashioned, but I still think that they should work in black and white, too.

Brands and display faces emerged with consumer culture during the 19^th Century. Logotypes were displayed prominently in high streets, advertising hoardings, and on sign boards. In many instances the message would be in black and white. They were designed to be legible from a distance, at a glance, and to be instantly recognisable. Even with colour, contrast was important.

The same is true for the Web today; only the context has changed, and the popularity of logomarks and icons. We should always test any logo at low resolutions and sizes, and the brand must still have good contrast (regardless of WCAG 2.0) to be optimal. A combination of colour and form works wonders, but in a world of a million colours where only a handful are named in common parlance, having the right form still seems a smarter choice than trying to own a palette or colour.

A final word

This article was prompted by a happy accident followed by a bit of reading. There are many references to optical illusions in design and typography books. The example image at the start of this article was inspired by one found in the excellent Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works by Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger. There’s also plenty of online material about optical or visual illusions you can dive into. There’s also more on . Oh, and don’t forget the work of M. C. Escher!

Human eyes are amazing. In two sets of watery bags we get a wide-angle lens with incredibly sharp focus and ridiculous depth of field. Apparently our brain is even clever enough to compensate for the lag in the signal getting from retina to cortex. I know next to nothing about ocular science. Spending a morning reading and thinking about optical illusions, and contemplating my own view here in the garden office is pretty awe-inspiring. If only my photographs were as good as my eyes, illusions or no.

I’ve shot at this location a few times but for some reason I’ve never seen it from the other side. Literal proof that shooting with other creatives gives you new perspective. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

I like the philosophy behind shooting with primes; that a photographer shouldn’t stand still but instead, continuously move closer, further, lower, or higher relative to his/her subject as a means of establishing a deeper connection. ????????
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Save 50% on my custom Lightroom presets with HOLIDAY50. Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

This is from my favourite shoot/photoset of all time. It was spontaneous, serendipitous, and simply beautiful. ☂️
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The edit: After applying my preset (I used Clean for this one), I bumped up the exposure and desaturated the yellows/oranges a bit. As a finishing touch, I used a graduated filter to brighten the top a bit and a radial filter on @sllychn to brighten and sharpen the focal point. That’s it! ✨ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Trying to straighten all the lines on this shot is a sure fire way to go blind. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

I’ve gone subway hopping for photos in every city I’ve been to except the one I live in. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

I took this shot about a year ago when I had a very different editing style. A ton of faded blacks and, believe it or not, a subtle green tint (unknowingly inherited from the preset I was using at the time). Re-editing it now, I’m happy with the way my style has evolved, though I can already sense that I’m on the brink of evolving it again. And I’m okay with that. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

This trip solidified my conviction to learning photography. A lot has happened since this shot was taken.
Can you pinpoint the moment you decided to pursue photography? (at Toronto, Ontario)

A lot to look forward to in 2017. How did 2016 treat you: ???? or ????? (at San Francisco, California)

The right photo effect can transform an ordinary image into a work of art. Adjustments to lighting, color balance, and texture help you create the perfect mood for your project.

““I always hated that word—marketing—and I hate it now. Because for me, and this may sound simplistic, the key to marketing is to make something people want. When they want it, they buy it. When they buy it, you have sales. So the product has to speak. The product is what markets things.””

- Interview with Tom Ford.

“

What is deceptive, especially in the West, is our assumption that repetitive and mindless jobs are dehumanizing. On the other hand, the jobs that require us to use the abilities that are uniquely human, we assume to be humanizing. This is not necessarily true. The determining factor is not so much the nature of our jobs, but for whom they serve.

‘Burnout’ is a result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself. You could be burnt out for an abstract concept, ideal, or even nothing (predicament). You end up burning yourself as fuel for something or someone else. This is what feels dehumanizing. In repetitive physical jobs, you could burn out your body for something other than yourself. In creative jobs, you could burn out your soul. Either way, it would be dehumanizing. Completely mindless jobs and incessantly mindful jobs could both be harmful to us.

“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.”

- Artist Sol Lewitt on conceptual art.

Nearly 34.6 million people traveled to Florida from July through September -- shattering another tourism record for the state.

Scott Wilson works for CETIS. He was initially responsible for turning the CETIS site into THE portal for learning technology standards. Scott is an Assistant Director of CETIS, and has a special interest in standards for infrastructure and enterprise integration. Scott facilitated a workshop session on "XCRI: Syndicating the Online Prospectus" with Ben Ryan.

Stephen Emmott is the Head of Web Services at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) where he leads a team of 10 delivering the LSE's Web site, portal ("LSE for You") and document management services. Prior to this he was the Editor of Web Services at King's College London (1997 to 2000) and has worked a total of 9 years in higher education and 3 years in industry. His background is in cognitive science and he is currently leading an initiative to adopt PRINCE2 at LSE. Stephen chaired the morning session on Wednesday 18 July: Conclusions.

Stephen Emmott, King's College London, gave a talk entitled "Content Management Systems".